Evidence of meeting #62 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was service.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It's necessary, but far from sufficient to improve the ATIP process.
I was at another parliamentary committee in December that's studying the access to information process and I made specific recommendations to that committee as well.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
What kind of expertise does outsourcing let the government access, that it doesn't have in-house?
I know you referenced this before, but it's for the record.
4:35 p.m.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I was a deputy minister for 17 years. I never saw management consulting firms get involved in policy development—ever. It's just not their wheelhouse. At least it wasn't, up to the point at which I left government. That's my experience.
Where they have been helpful to government departments and agencies is in management and service delivery. They have global client bases and international rosters of expertise or they're small firms with niche expertise, so they tend to get involved to provide an outside perspective on business processes, governance, organizational maturity, costing and risk management. There is a lot on service issues, queue management, customer relationships, web and app design, security and cybersecurity. I could go on, but basically the wheelhouse is services and management issues. That's where you see most of the activity of the firm.
If I've read the articles properly, about a third of the use of external contractors is in the world of IM and IT, which, as you know, has completely changed. There was no iPhone in 2007, so government has been catching up and keeping up with technology.
You're aware of a discussion that's under way right now about GPT and artificial intelligence. Keeping up with what's happening in technology is one of the bigger challenges for the public sector.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
The audit and the procurement ombudsman recommended that due diligence be strengthened, which the department agreed to.
Do you believe that this will rectify future compliance issues in the administrative process?
4:35 p.m.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I don't think I'm qualified to have an opinion on that. You might want to talk to one of the secretaries of the Treasury Board who's more involved in the nuts and bolts of procurement and contracting.
You can always invest more in due diligence, hindsight and after-action review. We have about 14 officers and agents of Parliament that employing over 2,000 people to look at what has been done.
My plea is to invest in thinking about the future as well.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
Ms. Bonin, I'll just move to you for a couple of very quick questions.
Did McKinsey compete to provide the best service in order to win the contracts? If so, isn't this how the free market is intended to work?
4:35 p.m.
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
In the work that I was involved in at McKinsey, the work was all fairly competed. McKinsey ended up being the selected option based on a thorough set of processes that the Government of Canada imposes on us in order to get to that selection.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
I'll try to get this one in quickly.
For the record, how would you characterize McKinsey's relationship with the federal government?
4:40 p.m.
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
In the work that I was involved in, we had a great, healthy, respectful relationship with our clients. Our primary purpose was to serve them in order to offer better services to Canadians.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
I'll go back to you, Mr. Wernick.
Very quickly—again this is for the record—did you provide advice to ministers concerning contracts to McKinsey? This is, obviously, when you were with the government.
4:40 p.m.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
No, never.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
To your knowledge, has McKinsey made recommendations to the federal government that were considered at cabinet? If so, what were they?
4:40 p.m.
Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It didn't, to my knowledge.
It's hard to know where the inputs of advice end up. Nothing really comes to cabinet as a recommendation that isn't a signed recommendation from one of the members of cabinet as a memorandum to cabinet. There are lots of inputs, including stakeholders, consultations—all kinds of ways.
At the end of the day, it is the minister that signs the recommendation to cabinet who's accountable for the advice and recommendations to their colleagues.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
Thanks. That is our time.
Welcome, Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, my colleague from public accounts.
You have a short two and a half minutes.
4:40 p.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon to our witnesses. I am replacing a colleague, but I am a bit familiar with the subject of consulting, having also made part of my career in that field.
My first question, and I am happy to finally have the opportunity to ask it, is for you, Ms. Bonin. Would you agree that there is a certain conflict of interest between the desire to transfer one's expertise, during a mission or in connection with a contract with the government, and the need to renew the contract and offer more expertise afterward? Do you recognize that there actually is a certain conflict of interest?
4:40 p.m.
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
I can imagine that it may look like conflicts of interest, but I can assure you that the consultants' goal is not to renew a contract without this transfer of expertise taking place. I mentioned that in my remarks. In most cases, our clients are not going to renew their contracts with us when it is very obvious that we are no longer providing added value, since all consulting work is based on that added value.
4:40 p.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Absolutely, but the added value is not necessarily the transfer of expertise. You provide added value when expertise is lacking internally.
4:40 p.m.
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
Yes. The added value is when we are able to solve a very complex problem that could probably not have been solved by the public sector. However, we do not just solve that problem: we also transfer knowledge in order to free ourselves up, to not be held back, and to enable us to focus on the next complex problem.
4:40 p.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
In that case, how do you explain the fact that there has been an increase in requests for consulting contracts? If this transfer of expertise takes place, the result should not be an increase in requests, ordinarily.
4:40 p.m.
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
As I explained, we have to recognize that of the three...
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kelly McCauley
I'm afraid I have to interrupt you there. I know you have a flight to catch, and that's our two and half minutes.
Mr. Johns, please.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Thanks.
I'm just going to continue on that because I think there are some really important questions around that.
Maybe you can help us, Ms. Bonin, in terms of the shifts that you're seeing in management consulting. Obviously, with these numbers growing, these consulting companies are building infrastructure to respond to the demand. To go from $11 million with Deloitte to $206 million is a twentyfold increase. To scale up is just significantly.... It's a big task for even a consulting firm.
Can you speak about what you're seeing in terms of the changing consulting world to respond to government need? Also, again, let's go back to the transfer of knowledge because if the transfer of knowledge is happening, why are they still employing these large consulting firms?
4:45 p.m.
Managing Director and Partner, As an Individual
I'm afraid I'm not in a position to talk about all of the firms in the industry. It is not my area of expertise. What I can go back to is that we've seen unprecedented needs for management consulting in the last three or four years. Because of this, the consulting industry has done an amazing job of responding to be able to either provide those capabilities or the extra.... I will call it the surge capacity. Will it continue this way?